With more than a quarter of the players born outside the US, professional baseball is the UN of American pro sports. We take a look at a position crucial to a team’s success: the interpreter…and how the job requires more than mere translation. Plus, France’s government is banning English words like ‘fast-food’ and ‘hashtag’ in the name of cultural preservation…we find out why the words are unlikely to disappear from the vernacular anytime soon. And, Sue Miller speaks about her new book, The Arsonist.
Listen to the full show and Read more for individual segments.
The Importance of MLB Interpreters
Eric Benson spoke to us about the evolving role of interpreters in Major League Baseball. His article for Grantland, “Laughing With Yu Darvish” profiles Kenji Nimura, the trilingual interpreter for the Texas Rangers.
English's Loaned Words
Britt Peterson is a freelance writer and editor who writes about books, culture, and ideas. Her article, “English, Loanword Champion of the World!” discusses the high percentage of “loaned words” from the English language, and our own word-borrowing habits.
Facebook, A Social Science Expert?
Clifford Lampe is Associate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His op-ed for the Chronicle of Higher Education about recent social experiments conducted by Facebook is titled “Facebook is Good for Science”.
Sue Miller’s The Arsonist
The Arsonist is the latest novel from Sue Miller, author of several best-selling books including When I Was Gone and The Senator’s Wife. The book centers around a series of arsons that push a bucolic New Hampshire town into the national spotlight.
